Colosseum in Rome By: Kayce M

The Colosseum, located in Rome, Italy, is one of the Seven Wonders of the World because it is a beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture that everyone enjoys.
The construction of the Colosseum began by about A.D. 75, When Emperor Vespasian was in control. One reason the Colosseum was built was so the people of Rome could let go of all their aggressive tendencies by watching people fight to the death. The government thought that if they did that, the people would be less likely to rebel against the government. The reason the Colosseum looks the way it does now is because it was damaged by severe earthquakes. The Colosseum is now occupied by stray cats.
The fighters at the Colosseum were gladiators, slaves, prisoners, and animals. A plentiful amount of fighters were killed each year at the Colosseum, and if a fight ended with an injury, the emperor could say that he wanted the loser killed. Many Christians were martyred at the Colosseum, because it was seen as a crime worth killing someone if you didn’t believe in the Roman gods. Fights stopped at the Colosseum once Christianity became the Roman Empire’s main religion because Christians did not believe in human sacrifice. The wild animal fights stayed there until A.D. 523 though, because of the wild animal fights, many animals are now extinct.
The Colosseum wasn’t always called the Colosseum. It used to be called, and some people still call it the Flavian Amphitheater. It was called that because the family that supervised construction of the Colosseum was the Flavian family, so it was named after them. It was later renamed the Colosseum because of a colossal statue of Emperor Nero adjacent to the Colosseum. It is now more commonly known as the Colosseum.
The Colosseum is very immense and has very remarkable features. It is four stories tall and has eighty entrances. The Colosseum can hold forty-five to fifty thousand people. The seats were split into four sections, the lowest level was for private citizens, the middle level was for the middle class, the upper level was for slaves and foreigners, and the highest level was for women and the poor. Some remarkable features that the Colosseum had were elevators that were used to lift animals onto the Colosseum floor and a door called the Porta Libitunaria which was used to carry the dead bodies out of the Colosseum, the Colosseum also had rooms, lifts, and tunnels underground where the fighters waited before the fight called the Hypogeum.
The Colosseum is one of the Seven Wonders of the World because it was amazing and special because it brought everyone together to watch a fight. It is also special because it is still standing to this day and survived all the earthquakes.


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